Banana Republic: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (removed redundant "board games" section -- Tabletop Games had the same entry.) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Although the United States is, uh, a very rich country and San Marcos is a very poor one, there are a great many things we have to offer your country in return for aid. For instance, there, uh, there are locusts."''|'''[[Woody Allen|Fielding Mellish]]''', '''''[[Bananas]]'''''}}
Line 6:
Any backwards tropical country (almost always fictitious, more often than not Latin American), that is ruled by a small corrupt clique. Also known in Spanish as "República Bananera" or "República del Plátano". Usually a [[People's Republic of Tyranny]] or a [[Puppet State]]. Will probably contain [[Jailbird of Panama|Jailbirds of Panama.]]
The terms has its origins in the [[wikipedia:United Fruit Company|United Fruit Company]], an honest-to-god [[Mega Corp]] with a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] approach. With the help of their buddies in the CIA, and some "well-intentioned" American presidents, United Fruit created countless US-friendly military dictatorships throughout the tropics dedicated to growing '''''bananas'''''. In these countries, United Fruit paid extremely low wages and close to zero taxes. Marxist and Maoist guerrillas surfaced everywhere,<ref>[[Mexico]] was pretty much the one and only country between the US and Antarctica that still had a "democratic" government, and even then, the left-leaning ''Partido Revolucionario Institucional'' (PRI) held a near-dictatorial monopoly on power until [[The Nineties]].</ref>
Since it was usually the Communists who opposed the dictatorships
May be called "Val Verde". As seen below, however, there is a whole catalogue of fictional names for these countries.
Line 95:
== Video Games ==
* The ''[[Tropico]]'' series is basically one big [[Troperiffic]]
** [[Older Than They Think]]: ''Dictator'', an obscure text-based ZX Spectrum game, allows you to control the people of the fictional republic of Ritimba... but not for long, due to it being an [[Endless Game]] (it's impossible to please '''every layer of society''', you see).<ref>Sidenote: make sure you have got an escape plane and a couple of bodyguards before a revolution starts... they LOVE throwing revolutions at your head. Literally.</ref>
* The ''[[Metal Gear]]'' series has Outer Heaven in the original ''Metal Gear'' and Zanzibarland in ''Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake''. The later ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' games mostly avert this, with the exception of ''Metal Gear Solid 4'': Act 2 takes place in an unspecified country in 'South America', which [[All There in the Script|the end credits reveals to be Peru.]] But at that point of the series alternate history, it seems to fir the trope perfectly. There's also Gindra in ''Ghost Babel''. Well, Ghost Babel does take place in the same place as [[MG 1]]...
Line 112:
* Roger takes over an island from the CIA in ''[[American Dad]]''. He renames the country "Bananarama", forces everyone to dance, and turns it into a resort where the only mode of transportation is floating in innertubes. The locals finally rebel when he decrees that everything be painted yellow. As one of the revolutionaries mentions, "I have painted my last child."
* ''[[The Mask (animation)|The Mask]]'' animated series had the "Plantation Republic" in one episode. It seemed to be based on a blend of Nikaragua and Honduras (guerillas, outdated prop plane fighters), but set on a relatively featureless forested island. Their welcome sign had the phrase "Now Go Away" at the end.
* ''[[Hurricanes]]'' has a
* ''[[Banana Man]]'' once had to go to a
| |||